Republicans Have Now Trapped Themselves On Health Care Reform

The Republican Party's political attacks on Obamacare have backed them into a corner and the only way out is to abandon their own policy ideas.

Throughout October and November, Republicans repeatedly hammered the president for his "if you like your plan, you can keep it" promise.

The attacks were twofold:

Obama lied to the American people when he told them they could keep their plans.

Everyone who likes their current insurance should be able to keep it.

The first criticism is entirely justified and deserved. The president did lie and he must face the consequences of it. But the second one is a purely political attack that ignores the realities of health care reform.

There is no possible way to reform the health care system and not disrupt millions of people.

President Clinton's health reform died in the mid-1990s because he admitted that. Obama learned from that mistake and lied to the public that the Affordable Care Act wouldn't be disruptive. In the president's thinking, this was a necessary falsehood in pursuit of a larger goal.

The ironic thing is, that for most Americans, Obama's statement holds true. The law doesn't make any major changes to the 160 million people who receive insurance through their employer, for instance. The major reforms take place in the individual market, which is comprised of 15 million Americans.

That's a significant number of people, but it's only 5% of the country. As major reforms go, Obamacare is not very disruptive.

On the other side, Republican health reform ideas would turn the market upside down. Eliminating the tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance was a focal point of both former president George W. Bush and presidential nominee John McCain's health reform plans. That would be extremely disruptive to the market.

It's also a good idea. There's no reason that Americans purchasing coverage through their employers should receive a tax advantage. Eliminating this preferential tax treatment would cause many employers to stop offering coverage and instead raise wages. This would also give workers more flexibility to switch jobs because health insurance would no longer be tied to employment (Obamacare helps with that too).

The problem is that Republicans have spent two months criticizing Obamacare for forcing insurers to cancel coverage. How can they propose a different health reform idea that would cause insurers to do just that? Republicans have set a standard for reform — that everyone can keep their plan — that they cannot meet.

Conservative policy wonks worried about this in real time. Attacking Obamacare for disrupting the market was a short-term political winner, but a long-term loser. What happens if Republicans ever want to pass their own reforms? Democrats can hold them to the standard they set this past November. Republicans would have to ditch their ideas.

[S]ome Republican policy specialists have started to advocate that the GOP instead adopt a more modest approach.

"There's an acknowledgment that massive overturning of the employer-sponsored system is something people just aren't ready for," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a leading Republican economist and chief policy adviser to Mr. McCain's campaign.

"Republicans will walk into the same buzz saw if they aren't savvier and more thoughtful," said Dean Clancy, vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks, a tea party-aligned activist group that backs conservative candidates.

Interest has grown, because Republicans can no longer support any health reform that radically disrupts the market. In trashing Obamacare, they have backed themselves into a corner.

Americans have always been terrified of any major changes in the health insurance market. That's what prompted Obama to lie in the first place. But Republicans have made it much worse by telling Americans that reform shouldn't disrupt the market at all. Now, they have no choice but to abandon their health policy ideas.